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Top 5 Reasons I still Love WoW

I still find World of Warcraft fun, interesting, and challenging. Here is the top 5 reasons why.

1. Friends.

A lot of my friends play online games, and this is a simple and highly affective way of keeping in touch with them. When you move cities you find a significant reduction in your social circle, and wow allows me to keep in touch with the folks that I might otherwise not chat to due to a few hundred kilometers.

2. The more things change, the more they are the same.

The game has changed since I started playing way back when. Classes, new races, strange tweaks, etc. That said the basic is still the same. Yes, I know its an MMO and they are similar to each other, thats the point. I really like spending time playing computer games, and hope to for many years to come.

3. Interaction with Total Strangers.

As much as I hate some idiots in game, I really like others. The melting pot that is the player base is fantastic, and there are real diamonds out there. Every so often you meet a player at either end of the Asshat<—>Legend scale, and its always noteworthy.

4. Loot, Stats, and Upgrades.

Yep, I like a good upgrade, and like tweaking the way a character is played. I’ve only recently learnt that the +15 Spell Damage Bracer Enchant is a very rare drop from some Ogres, so I’ve started farming. Its a loooong grind that will benefit myself, my other toons, and all my friends characters too.

Getting an upgrade is secondary to the fun of playing, but part of my mind is made happy by the sensation that there was a “digitally tangible” reward for the time spent. If there was no gear to be obtained the reason to repeat an instance more than once would quickly disappear. I know, they’re just pixels and numbers in a database; but its immersive, and that counts.

The loot chase does not need to be an experiment in greed; so let those emails about playing a loot-whore pass please.

5. Distraction

Life has a way of challenging everyone, and my work is very challenging at the moment. Killing pixels is better than ranting unproductively at strangers in the street, and also than repeating similar stories of work hassle to those around me.

I’m also a widower to my partner’s study, which means that I have time to spend and I’d rather not be seeing movies, drinking, (..etc..) alone. WoW gives me a place to spend time that is basically bottomless, and where I can spend as little or as much without affecting the actions of others.

When we’re able to head out together I usually drop wow in a heartbeat, for the RL adventures. Its a (brilliant) game after all.